


... and what remains

by unheard_secret



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-19
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-05 19:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unheard_secret/pseuds/unheard_secret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma and Bae were the last to leave.</p><p>Episode tag for 2x16: The Miller's Daughter</p>
            </blockquote>





	... and what remains

**Author's Note:**

> Getting inside Gold's head is hard. I figured this was as good a place to begin as any.

Emma and Bae were the last to leave.

Rumplestiltskin wasn't expecting it. He had assumed that Bae would stay with him, now that they were in Storybrooke. He was the boy's father, after all, and they had a lot of catching up to do. He'd been looking forward to the moment when they could sit down together. When they could finally talk alone, without an audience to witness their every word, forcing them to play out this strange performance of father and son. He'd thought that Bae would stay. His son had held his hand while he was dying. Surely that meant that there was chance that he would be forgiven?

It seemed, however, that now Rumplestiltskin was no longer dying, Bae's attention had turned toward other things. Rumplestiltskin could sense the Imp inside him clamouring for him to make his son stay, even if Bae didn't want to. He had the magic to make it happen. All it would need would be a flick of his fingers. But, the Imp had no power in this world, and even Rumplestiltskin had to acknowledge that getting to know the son you hadn't even known existed trumped reconnecting with the father you still couldn't fully forgive.

He forced the unruly Imp as far away as he could, pulling Rumplestiltskin, and the ever-present Mr Gold, closer to the forefront of his mind. He watched quietly while Emma offered to drive Neal over to Granny's to get a room, before making a painful offer of hospitality, her body so tense that it looked like she was preparing for battle not asking her son's father over for a meal. Gold raised an eyebrow when she fell silent, and watched Bae swallow nervously before agreeing. Neither of them looked at him once during the entire exchange. It was as though he was invisible, and he'd never liked being invisible. Invisible implied small and weak, and he wasn't either of those things, not any more. So he cleared his throat and said "I'll see you tomorrow then, son," hoping that it wasn't too obvious that his heart was in his throat and that it had taken all the courage he possessed to even say anything at all.

They turned to look at him. Bae's face was shuttered and his eyes were wary. Emma just looked at the empty space gaping between them like a void, and offered to wait outside, quickly disappearing. 

"I don't know," Bae said, clearing his throat. "I might come around. If I feel like it."

Rumplestiltskin nodded. "All right, son," he said, a little weakly. He blinked tiredly and tried to summon the courage to try again. He needed tell Bae so many things... _You're my son,_ he wanted say, and _I've missed you. Let me be a father to you again._ But, before he could say anything, Bae cut off his unuttered pleas by turning to leave and rapidly following Emma out the door.

He disappeared within moments, and Rumplestiltskin found himself abruptly, agonisingly alone.

He stood in the centre of the room for a long moment, leaning heavily on his cane, feeling the warm air of the shop press down heavily on him, so thick that he could barely breath. He tightened his hand around his cane automatically, and his other hand tightened about the hilt of his dagger. He'd forgotten he was holding it, and he glanced down at it with a distant sense of curiosity. He didn't know what to do with it, so he let it drop to the floor, and then stepped out of his shop and followed his heart to the hospital where it lay sleeping on top of the sheets; the first to leave, and the least likely to return.


End file.
